Infants and young children love to be rocked to sleep. This love begins within the arms of their parents, followed by baby rockers and bouncer seats and even to rocking toys, such as a hobby horse. It is evident that rocking motions sooth and calm young children, particularly when a child is placed in a car seat and taken on a trip in a motor vehicle. The movement and sounds generated by the vehicle seem to work magic on fussy or crying babies. Within minutes they are sound asleep and frequently remain so for the entire trip. In fact, many parents and professionals advise that taking a young child on a short car ride is a guaranteed method inducing sleep. While various items attempt to mimic a rocking motion inside the home, nothing seems to work as well as a car ride. Some parents, faced with a particularly fussy child, do indeed end up taking their child for a ride to calm them and get them to sleep. This method of calming a child may be effective but it can be incredibly inconvenient, can be expensive with the rising cost of gasoline, and can be dangerous for a tired parent to drive in the middle of the night.
Various attempts have been made to overcome this problem and provide a suitable seat or rocking device for the calming of young children. These attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. Patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 5,147,109, issued in the name of Jolly, which describes a car seat apparatus for securing a child to a vehicle seat that utilizes a sound reproducing mechanism to induce the child to be secured and harnessed in the car seat apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,238,455, issued in the name of Cain, Jr. et al., describes an omni-directional rocking apparatus comprising a rocking base and a seating assembly to provide a rocking toy that simulates an animal body, vehicle, or the like.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,574,806, issued in the name of Maher, describes an infant seat rocking device that provides a rocking motion to an infant which doesn't rely on the movement of the infant or a parent seated nearby. The Maher device comprises a seat and a seat moving assembly which uses the rotation of a crank arm to pull on the seat to provide the rocking motion.
Another solution attempt to provide a means of simulating ground travel by attaching a drive mechanism to a child's ride-on vehicle toy as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,155,833, issued in the name of Lenihan, which describes a ride simulator for use with a children's ride-on vehicle.
Among the relevant attempts to provide vehicle ride simulations for amusement purposes are several U.S. Patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 6,431,872, issued in the name of Shiraishi et al., which describes a drive simulation apparatus and U.S. Pat. No. 6,533,670, issued in the name of Drobnis, which describes an amusement ride with pivotable motion base.
Additionally, ornamental designs for car seats and seat bases exist, particularly, U.S. Pat. No. D 417,568. However, none of these designs are similar to the present invention.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffers from one or more deficiencies related to effectively reproducing the combination of sounds and motions provided by a moving vehicle. Accordingly, there exists a need for a means by which the movement and sounds as generated by a moving motor vehicle can be simulated in the home for the purposes of calming and helping a child to sleep. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.